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Winchester, and about three from the little market town of Alresford, lies Cheriton, an ideal English village. Branching off the highway, half a mile before you come to the church and village green, a road leads you through high hedges and past rich water meadows to Tichborne Park, where for centuries, reaching back be- yond the Norman conquest, the family of that name has lived and borne sway. The house itself is modern, built early in the present century, but the picture of the famous 'Dole' shows the interesting old mansion which it has re- placed; and the beautiful avenues, known as the `Crawls,' commemorate the deed of devotion by which the Dole was established. The Tichbornes have long ranked with the great Roman Catholic families of England, connected with them by constant intermarriage, and sharing in that en- forced isolation to which prejudice and harsh laws have until recent times condemned many of the noblest and most loyal of the English houses, but occupying none the less, by virtue of their broad acres and ancient lineage, a prominent and influential position in the county. Sir Henry Tichborne, the seventh baronet, was the father of four sons, and at his death, in 1821, there could have seemed little prospect of a failure of male heirs, but the next generation disclosed a very different state of things. The eldest son, Sir Henry Joseph, had six daughters, but no boy; and when he died in 1845, he was succeeded by his brother, Sir Edward, to whom large estates in Dorsetshire and Northamptonshire and valuable London house property had been bequeathed by the will of an old Miss Doughty, whose name he assumed in lieu of Tichborne. Married to a daughter of Lord Arundel of Wardour, Sir Edward had one son, who died in infancy, and his only other child was a daughter. Robert Tich- borne, the youngest of the four, was married, but had no issue; and the only hope of retaining the Doughty and Tichborne estates in the male line was centred in the third brother, James, who was the father of two sons, Roger Charles, born in 1829, and Alfred Joseph, who entered the world ten years afterwards.1 James Tichborne's marriage brought him male heirs, but it does not seem to have brought much happiness; at any rate it was a very chequered union. He had chosen for his wife Henriette Felicity, the natural daughter of Mr. Henry Seymour of Knoyle, in Wiltshire; her mother was a member of one of the most distinguished families in France, that of Bourbon Conti; and though the relationship was never alluded to in words, she lived on affectionate terms with her father and her half-brothers and sisters, and was with her husband and sons a constant visitor at Knoyle. In her youth she had been a spoiled beauty, and she had grown up with a perverse and selfish 1 There were two daughters, who died in infancy. disposition, attached to her husband, but making his life miserable, and treating her two children at times with injudicious indulgence, but always in accordance with her own reckless caprice. The strongest motives which regulated her domestic conduct were dislike of England and the English, and and jealousy of her husband's relations. Her great wish was that her sons should be brought up in France and as Frenchmen, and to this she adhered with the tenacity of a narrow, ill-regulated, but most obstinate disposition. To this object additional zest was given by her husband's opposition. Fond of his relatives, and of the old English home, of which his eldest son must in .the course of nature become master, he felt how necessary it was for Roger to receive an education such as would fit him to associate with his equals amongst the Hampshire gentry, but it was not for many years that he was able to accomplish his aim. Mrs. Tichborne's proclivities, combined with the narrow income of a younger son, made him choose Paris as his residence, and it was there in the Rue de la Ferme that Roger was born, and it was in Paris that his life was spent from 1829 to 1845. It was the ordinary life of a home-bred French boy of good family, except that he had even less liberty, and that his education was shamefully neglected. His mother's ill- judged fondness would not allow of his undergoing the discipline of school, and he was handed over to a succes- sion of tutors, sometimes trustworthy, sometimes the reverse; and though French was his native language, and no other seems to have been spoken at his home, he could neither write it grammatically nor spell it correctly. At last, in 1845, the opportunity arrived. Mr. Tich- borne seized the occasion of the funeral of his brother, Sir Henry Joseph, to bring Roger over to England; and once there, without the knowledge of his wife, he placed him at Stonyhurst, the famous Jesuit seminary, near Preston in Lancashire. Mrs. Tichborne raved and stormed from Paris, but the deed was done, and there the next three years of Roger's life were spent. He was put amongst what are called 'The Philosophers,' who lived apart from the younger boys, and from those destined for the priesthood, and who led a life something between that of the prefects at a public school and freshmen at Oxford or Cambridge. They were subjected to an easy discipline, and went through a course of study, or, rather, had the opportunity of doing so, for the attendance at lectures seems to have been enforced very gently. Roger Tich- borne does not appear to have profited to any very great extent by the instruction of the fathers and professors -- his unhappy boyhood had never allowed of the founda- tions of knowledge being laid -- but he had a fair amount of general reading, learned the elements of Greek and Latin, attempted to construe Caesar and Virgil, and grappled with the earlier propositions of Euclid. At any rate, he learned to speak and write English fluently, though not always correctly, for his spelling was not good, and his grammar showed constant traces of the French idiom; above all, he learned to associate with young men of his own age and station, drawn from the best Roman Catholic families, and to prepare to hold his own in the world. As far as his letters show, he was thoroughly happy, and enjoyed the sports of the place, in one of which, 'bandy' -- a name given to hockey when played elsewhere than on the ice -- he came to excel. Shortly after leaving Stonyhurst he entered the army, again running counter to his mother's wishes. A cavalry commission had been promised him, but there was some delay; and in 1849 he took the bold step of writing to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the future Lord Raglan, with the result that within a few weeks he was gazetted to the 6th Dragoon Guards, the Carabineers. Even in those days an examination was necessary, though a very different affair from that which is now required as a passport to Sandhurst; but Roger, while failing in arithmetic, succeeded in satisfying the examiners, .and joined his regiment at Dublin in October 1849. His service lasted from that date to December 1852, during which period the Carabineers were stationed at Dublin, Cahir, Clonmel, and finally at Canterbury. They were then under orders for India, but the arrangement was suddenly altered, and this determined Roger, who was bent upon foreign service, to send in his papers and quit the army. He seems to have been really fond of his profession, but disqualified by nature from becoming a good or even a tolerable officer; he knew his drill on paper, but could never give the right word of command; he was a bold rider, but could never acquire the cavalry seat; he was not particularly popular among the men, where his French accent exposed him to ridicule, and he was the butt of the mess. Cavalry regiments have not altered much in their interior economy, and practical joking of a rather brutal kind was freely practised at his expense. Still, he stood it most good-naturedly; and when `Tich,' as he was called, sold out, his brother officers, if they could not conscientiously regret the soldier, parted on the friendliest terms from the quaint young Frenchman. Roger Tichborne now resolved upon a prolonged tour in South America; and in March 1853, after a farewell visit to his father and mother at Paris, he sailed from Havre for Valparaiso in a French vessel named La Pauline. The constant bickerings between his parents and his mother's violent temper rendered his home an unhappy one, or, as he expressed it in one of his letters, a ' hell upon earth.' But there was a stronger motive which contributed to drive him from Europe. From his earliest Stonyhurst days he had been thrown in the society of his English relatives, and his various holidays and periods of leave had been spent amongst them, sometimes with the Seymours at Knoyle, sometimes at Bath, sometimes at Townley and at Bilton Grange, but more particularly with Sir Edward and Lady Doughty at Tichborne, and at Upton, their seat in Dorsetshire. With Lady Doughty he was on the warmest and most affectionate terms; a great mass of their correspondence is preserved; she seems to have stood much more in the relation of a mother to him than did ever Mrs. James Tichborne, and in the course of the year 1849 he had confided to her his attachment to her only child. As time passed on this attachment strengthened, and there was much to make the match desirable on the part of Lady Doughty. Roger would ultimately succeed to his uncle's estates, and it would ensure her daughter's residence in the home of her childhood. Both she and Sir Edward were sincerely attached to their nephew, and she must have known that her daughter's feelings towards Roger were growing into something warmer than mere cousinly affection, but, on the other hand, there were serious drawbacks. Roman Catholics are not allowed to marry their first cousins without papal dispensation; and apart from this, Roger's habits were such as to cause grave uneasiness. In days when moderate smoking was looked upon as a sure concomitant of dissipation, he smoked immoderately; his aunt had reason to believe that he drank too much; and the collection of Paul de Dock's novels, which formed a considerable part of his library, filled her mind with apprehensions of another sort. Talebearers were not idle; many of her letters are taken up with remonstrances to her nephew; and she obviously felt serious misgivings as to whether his character was sufficiently stable to ensure her daughter's happiness. Roger spent the Christmas of 1851-52 at Tichborne; and on the 11th of January Sir Edward sent for him into the library, told him he had noticed the growing attachment, that he could never sanction the marriage, and that Roger had better go quietly away. He was granted an inter- view with his cousin, which left no doubt that his affection was returned, and he quitted the house after a sad part- ing, the memories of which he recalled in a most pathetic letter addressed to Miss.Doughty. In less than a fortnight Roger was summoned back by the news that his uncle was dying; and on what he believed to be his deathbed Sir Edward Doughty relented and gave his consent to an engagement, provided that a dispensation from the Pope and the approval of Mr. and Mrs. James Tichborne could be obtained. The illness took a turn for the better, and after waiting for a few days, Roger returned to his regiment at Clonmel. The engagement was not destined to be of long duration. Lady Doughty heard fresh stories about her nephew; and when, in the course of the summer, the latter injudiciously pressed for an immediate marriage, the Doughtys insisted that for three years their daughter should be free, and that in the interval there should be no communication by letter or otherwise. Roger took this as a dismissal, though there was no formal rupture, and he met his cousin for the last time on the 22nd of June 1852. From that date till his departure from England he refused to revisit Tichborne, even to bid farewell to his uncle, who was gradually sinking, and Lady Doughty was careful to keep the lovers asunder. Roger's letters to his aunt continued frequent and affection- ate, but his correspondence with his friend Vincent Gosford showed how deeply he resented what he considered her unfair treatment of him. At the same time, he never abandoned hope of ultimate success; and on the 22nd of June 1852, when he parted from Miss Doughty at Tichborne, Roger gave her the following paper, which he desired her to keep:- 'I make on this day a promise that if 1 marry my cousin, Catherine Doughty, this year, before three years are over, at the latest, to build a church or chapel at Tichborne to the Holy Virgin, in thanksgiving for the protection which she has thrown over us, and in praying God that our wishes may be fulfilled.' This promise or vow was no hasty resolution formed on the spur of the moment. Early in the year, unknown to his parents and relations, lie had made his will. Obstinacy and secretiveness were strongly marked characteristics of Roger's, and he had additional reasons for not confiding his intentions to those about him. In 1850, on the occasion of the resettlement of the family estates consequent upon his coming of age, he had withstood strong pressure put upon him by his uncle and father, both personally and through the family solicitor, Mr. Hopkins of Alresford, and had insisted upon making himself master of all the details, and upon having his own way in several important particulars. He was unwilling to reopen these old grievances; and feeling that Mr. Hopkins, for whom he had contracted a dislike, would be sure to combat his wishes, and possibly appeal to other members of the family, he gave the instructions for his will to a well- known Roman Catholic solicitor, Mr. Slaughter. The will was a very carefully planned document, and in the letter containing his final directions he concluded with these words: ` My private wishes and intentions, as I intend to have them carried out if I live, I have confided to Mr. Vincent Gosford.' Mr. Gosford was the steward of the Tichborne estates, and though a good many years his senior, was the most intimate friend that Roger Tichborne had in the world. Much of the latter's spare time was spent in Gosford's office at Cheriton, and his letters to him breathe the most unrestrained confidence upon every subject, including his hopes and fears with regard to his cousin. In one of these, written in 1852, he says :- ' I have written my will and left it with Slaughter, and the only thing I have left out is about the church, which I will only build under the circumstances which I have left with you in writing.' This writing was the original of the vow, and it had been drawn up in Gosford's presence, and at his office, one morning during the early days of January, prior to Roger's dismissal from Tichborne. After reading it over aloud, the latter had put it in an envelope, sealed it with his own seal, and marked it Private and Confidential, nor did he ever inform Gosford of the existence of the duplicate, which he gave subsequently to Miss Doughty. Roger Tichborne reached Valparaiso on the 19th of June 1853, and there learned the news of Sir Edward Doughty's death. In the letter which he immediately despatched to his aunt he expressed the intention of travelling for eighteen months in South America, and then going on to India, and he at once proceeded to put the first part of the plan into execution. He had ample means; his allowance of £500 a year was doubled by his uncle's death; and from Valparaiso he went to Santiago, where he had a daguerreotype of himself taken, which was duly sent home, and thence to Lima, returning to Valparaiso, and then crossing the Cordilleras to Buenos Ayres, from which place he reached Rio de Janeiro in April 1854. During all this period he corresponded freely and even copiously with those at home -- his father, his mother, Lady Doughty, and others, but above all with Gosford. He had long been in the habit of keeping a journal, and lengthy extracts from it, if not the actual journal itself, were submitted to the domestic circle, and passed from hand to hand. An extract from one of these will not only give some idea of the manner in which his time was occupied, but will afford an illustration of the sort of correspondent which Roger Tichborne was :--
`BUENOS AYRES, March
1, 1854.
'MY DEAR MOTHER,
-- It is certainly strange that every
one of your letters as far back as I can remember have always been and are still now always on the same subject, without the least variation. Those subjects are invariably the duties of a son towards his mother, which fill up as a matter of course at least the first two pages. The two other pages are generally filled up with all kinds of imaginary fears and a list of accidents, the illness and sickness of every description which are quite unknown to anybody else but yourself. It must certainly be the work of your imagination which makes you think of so many things . . . . ` It is quite impossible for me to fix in any kind of way the time of my return to England. The life which I am following suits my taste too well for me to leave it in a hurry, especially as my health is remarkably good, and promising to keep so for a long time to come. I left Santiago in the middle of summer, which is the month of January, that is to say, on the 11th of January, to cross the Cordilleras of the Andes. We did not though reach the foot of those high mountains till the morning of the third day, when we began to ascend the first chain of mountains; we got down the other side early in the afternoon; we pushed on with our horses and mules so as to be able to reach the foot of the second, but it was not possible for us to reach it that day. We had, therefore, to build up our camp and cook up our dinner, which we all took with delight, as we had all of us very good appetites. After dinner we prepared our beds, which was nothing more than sheepskins, and after rolling ourselves in our cloaks went fast asleep . . . . 'I have seen certainly a great many countries in my life, but I never saw one where the sceneries which a person sees from the top of the Cordilleras of the Andes, for the wildness and magnificent scenery which he sees before him I don't think that there is anything to be compared to it in the world . . . . I have not time now to send you an extract of my daily journal to-day, but I shall write it out for you as soon as I shall have time. I suppose you must be by this time accustomed to the English country life, which is by far the best life to lead. Tichborne is a very nice place in all seasons in the year. Pray give my love to my father and Alfred.-- And believe me, my dear mother, your very affectionate son, 'R. C. TICHBORNE.'
He led a wild, healthy, out-of-door life, indulging
in roving
expeditions with Indian boatmen, in fishing and shooting, and in long dangerous rides; and, always interested in natural history, he made a collection of skinned birds, which, with pictures and other curios, were consigned to Tich- borne. Ten months, however, of South America were enough for him, and his next goal was Jamaica. The English servant, Moore, who had accompanied him from home he seems to have regarded as a spy upon his move- ments; and when the man was taken ill at Santiago early in the expedition, Roger was relieved rather than other- wise, and filled his place from time to time with French attendants. Arrived at Rio, he found an English ship, the Bella, ready to start for Kingston, and on the morning of the 30th of April she sailed with Roger Tichborne on board. Four days afterwards her long-boat was found floating bottom upwards, and in the vicinity were articles of wreckage which belonged to the ship, and which left no doubt that the Bella had foundered and gone down in the deep sea. There was nothing to show whether those on board had perished; but as months rolled on, and all inquiry proved fruitless, and no tidings came from land or ocean, it was assumed as beyond all question that neither passenger nor crew had survived the wreck. The insurance money was paid, the owners settled with the relatives, and in July 1855 Messrs. Slaughter and Gosford proved Roger Tich- borne's will, of which they were the executors. Curiously enough, no monument seems to have been erected to him ; but of the grief and distress caused by his untimely end there is ample evidence, and, with one exception, no single member of his family seems to have entertained the slightest doubt of his death. That exception was Lady Tichborne ; from the hour when the loss of the Bella was reported she never wavered in the belief that her son would be restored to her. Years rolled by, bringing all their changes. In 1854 Miss Kate Doughty had married Mr. Percival Radcliffe, the heir to a Yorkshire Baronetcy. In June 1862 Sir James Tichborne died, and was succeeded in his title and estates by his only surviving son, Alfred, who assumed the additional name of Doughty, as his father had done before him. Sir Alfred's days were few and evil; he was reck- lessly extravagant, and in the hands of the money-lending fraternity. His pecuniary difficulties gave rise to a whole crop of litigation; and when he died, in February 1866, the estate was very seriously involved. He had married a daughter of Lord Arundel of Wardour, a niece of Lady Doughty, and he left no issue living; but a few months after his death Lady Tichborne gave birth to a son, the present baronet, Sir Henry Alfred Joseph Doughty Tichborne. |
